Halton Hills Images

Independent & Free Press (Georgetown, ON), 2 Apr 2015, p. 12

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Pa ge 1 2 T hu rs da y, A pr il 2, 2 01 5 - T he IF P - H al to n H ill s - w w w .th ei fp .c a Sign up onlin e It's cold outside, but warm inside our Hot Yoga studio at our Red Barn Fitness campus. Enjoy our cozy studio with 10 weeks of warmth for only $125. Starts Fri, Apr 10. See our website for details. Beat the Cold with HOT YOGA by the fire! Local Motion Fitness Dr. Keith DaSilva Specialized dentistry for infants, children, teenagers and all patients with special needs New Patients Welcome! 13219 15 Sideroad, Georgetown 905-877-0900 Fax 905-877-0500 No referral necessary. Pick up your Free copy at any Sears catalogue location or view it online at sears.ca/cataloguecentral Free Shipping When you spend $99 ormore, before taxes. Some restrictions apply. See catalogue or sears.ca for details. Enjoy shopping from the comfort of your home, with 24/7 ordering convenience. Follow us @SearsCA Connect with Sears Canada NP065-728 © Sears Canada Inc., 2015. All rights reserved. now available! Summer preview sale catalogue 2015 NEWS When Peter McKeown tried on a pair of eSight glasses, he cried. The 53-year-old Georgetown man, who has been legally blind since 2004 due to diabetic retinopathy, could see things he hasn't been able to see for years. "I was on the 15th floor of a build- ing and I could read the phone num- ber on taxicabs on the street. I could read billboards three blocks away," said McKeown. He learned about the glasses from his brother who saw them on the Dis- covery Channel. They are made by eSight, an Ontario company, which has only been around for about two years. Like something out of Star Trek, the glasses are hooked up to a com- puter system that takes what's going on in the world and translates it into a version that makes sense for each user. "We use a camera to capture a video that we're able to instantly en- hance in such a way that people who are legally blind, their eyes are able to perceive more of the world around them," Taylor West, director of out- reach with eSight, said. It's not for people who are com- pletely blind, but those with "low vi- sion," people who have limited sight but are classified as legally blind. In McKeown's case he only has blurry peripheral vision in both eyes. The way the glasses work is by kind of like photo-shopping reality but the images are constant and instant. For example, for people who struggle with contrasts, West said the device adjusts to bring out the sharp- ness a person wouldn't otherwise register. After seeing what the glasses could do for him McKeown knew he had to have a pair, but at a cost of $15,000 he wasn't sure how to make that happen. The glasses are not currently cov- ered by OHIP but West said the com- pany has begun the "very complicat- ed process" to be covered under the program. Fortunately for McKeown the company was able to set up a crowd- funding campaign for him to raise the funds at http://www.gofundme.com/ help4peter and in 19 days Peter's friends and family came through and donated the $15,000 he needed to get the glasses. He's ordered them and is thrilled that he should have them by mid-April. One donor, who doesn't want to be named, contributed $7,600 to his campaign. "I would like to say thank you to each and every one of them, the sup- port they gave me was absolutely fabulous,' said McKeown. "For me (the glasses) are going to give me a lot more freedom back." The significant donor asked only one thing-- that McKeown pay it for- ward. So he's decided to keep the fund- raising campaign going with the hope of bringing in an additional $15,000 to go toward the purchase of eSight glasses for an Ontario child who could benefit from them. "The best way I can think of is to help a child who is going to have a lot more success in school and through his working career (due to the glass- es)," said McKeown. To make a donation to the fun- draising campaign to help a child (nearly $3,000 has been raised so far) visit http://www.gofundme.com/ help4peter or send a cheque to eSight, 20 Eglinton Ave. W., Suite 1505, To- ronto, ON, M4R 1K8. In the memo line write Fundraising -- Peter M. Also, McKeown says his friend Tracey Quinn of Clara Clark Bedding is donating $5 from every sale to the fundraising campaign. She will have a booth at the Halton Hills Cham- ber of Commerce Health, Home and Happiness Show at Mold-Masters SportsPlex, April 17-18. Quinn can be reached at 905-872-3733. Legally blind man is using crowd-funding to buy e-Sight glasses Peter McKeown tries out the e-Sight glasses, which allows him to see for the first time since 2004.

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